Where to Turn in Turbulent Times? Experts Weigh In

CNBC.com

Thursday, 18 Sep 2008 | 1:10 PM ETCNBC.com

SHARES

Wall Street has a had a wild ride this week, from the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers Holdings to the government rescue of American International Group , investors have had plenty of news to digest. As the market absorbs the latest reports, which include steps by the world's central banks to shore up global liquidity; Morgan Stanley's decision to enter into advanced merger talks with Wachovia ; and Washington Mutual's attempts to raise capital, CNBC asked the experts what investors should do.

Trillion Dollar Advice

Discussing the tremors in the market and what will be next, with Bob Doll, Blackrock vice chairman/global CIO, equities

Time to Buy

"I don't want to come across as blindly optimistic; my guess is that at some point, Joe, a couple of years from now, we'll look back and say, 'Why didn't we buy more U.S. equities with the S&P below 1200?'"

-Robert Doll, BlackRock, Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer

Corzine on the Manic Markets

Insight on what's happening with the economy, with Gov. Jon Corzine, D-NJ

Time of Fear

"I remember an old wizened trader telling me, 'There will be moments in life in Wall Street where fear and/or greed will dominate the scene most of the time, and they'll be the most exciting times,' and we're in one of those fear periods, and they sometimes go on longer than people think."

-Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey

A Bazooka in the Pocket

Pimco Proposal for Markets

Reliquifying the markets and injecting capital are among some suggestions to help the economy, says Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco Co-CEO

"To go back to what Secretary Paulson said about the bazooka in the pocket, firing the bazooka, you need to fire four bazookas simultaneously. The first bazooka is to reliquify the system, and that means putting in funds like the central banks are doing, and cutting interest rates. The second bazooka is to deal not with liquidity, but with capital. The system lacks capital, so it's to inject capital in some key financial institutions. The third bazooka is to stop the deleveraging, which is buying top-quality, highly-rated securities, and the fourth bazooka is on the regulatory side, to go from a pro-cyclical regulatory risk function to an anti-cyclical regulatory risk response."

-Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco Co-CEO and Co-Chief Investment Officer

Private Equity & Banks

A check on how private equity is faring in the markets, with David Rubenstein, The Carlyle Group co-founder/managing director

Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity

"Clearly, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You don't see this very often, and I'm not sure I want to see this very often, but for people who have capital - we have about $40 billion of dry powder to invest around the world - for people who have capital, this is probably going to be one of the unique times to invest capital."

-David Rubenstein, The Carlyle Group, Co-Founder & Managing Director

Private Equity Defaults Coming

Discussing the state of private equity, with Steve Rattner, Quadrangle Group managing principal

Private Equity on Hiatus

"Until you kind of know where the bottom is, until you have some sense of the assets you're buying, you can't do anything, and so, you're going to see for the most part, a period of hiatus in private equity, as everyone kind of regroups, finds out where the values are, and of course, you can't borrow any money right now to do a classic leveraged buyout."